My Healthy Habits

The desire to look younger has become more popular recently. Collectively, we spend billions of dollars each year on different ways to keep our skin looking young and beautiful: from non-invasive anti aging creams to more invasive procedures such as Botox injections and plastic surgery.

Our skin is constantly exposed to our external environment and acts as a barrier to protect us from heat, cold, microorganisms and UV irradiation. In order for our skin to remain smooth and flexible, it needs moisture and the structural proteins elastin and collagen. As we age, the moisture, collagen and elastin content of our skin decreases. Especially our face and hands, which are heavily exposed to the elements, will show signs of aging more than other skin: wrinkles and fine lines, sun damage, age spots and other blemishes.

For many people, invasive surgical procedures are not an option for budgetary and medical reasons. And if you decide you would like to have younger looking skin, how do you determine which anti aging cream is best for you?

A good anti aging cream will be formulated to help the skin regain moisture, repair potential damage caused by overexposure to the sun and help to increase levels of collagen and elastin. The overall end result should always be skin that has more moisture and shows less wrinkles and fine lines.

Today, customers can choose from a large number of different anti wrinkle creams: creams that help to reduce wrinkles on the entire face or more specialized products that only treat particular areas on the face, such as an eye cream that helps to diminish crow feet and wrinkles around the eyes and also treats dark circles underneath the eye.

No matter what anti aging cream you choose, there are a number of popular anti aging ingredients such as special peptides, antioxidants and herbal extracts that can be found in many high-quality anti aging creams:

• Vitamin A: In anti-aging skin care, vitamin A derivatives are often used to promote skin turnover and to stimulate collagen production, leading to a more youthful appearance
• Hyaluronic acid: Hyaluronic acid is a large polymer consisting of sugars, abundant in connective, epithelial and neuronal tissue. It is one of the major components of the extra-cellular matrix, where it promotes cell proliferation and migration. Hyaluronic acid promotes moisture absorption and retention
• Peptides: Peptides are short chains of amino acids (building blocks of proteins). Many anti aging products contain peptides such as Argireline (Acetyl Hexapeptide-3, patented by Lipotec) or Haloxyl (mixture containing the peptides Palmitoyl Oligopeptide and Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7, patented by Sederma) for their anti-aging effects. Peptides such as Haloxyl are aimed to reduce dark circles under the eyes. It has been shown in studies that the peptides in Haloxyl reduce the build-up of hemoglobin break-down products thereby diminishing the appearance of dark circles under the eye
• Collagen: Collagen is an important skin structural protein that gives the skin it’s smooth flexible appearance. As we grow older, the amount of collagen in the skin decreases, which results in wrinkles and fine lines. Many anti aging creams contain hydrolyzed collagen, which is an enzymatic break-down product of collagen-derived protein and is rich in the amino acid hydroxyproline
• Coenzyme Q: Coenzyme Q (CoQ10, ubiquinone) is an oil-soluble benzoquinone that is structurally similar to vitamin E and vitamin K and is mainly found in the mitochondria (where it is a part of the energy generating electron-transport chain). Because of its ability to transport electrons, Coenzyme Q is a potent antioxidant, it has become popular as an anti aging ingredient
• Antioxidants: Many anti-aging creams contain antioxidants such as Pomegranate and Acai Berry extract to protect the skin from free radical damage

Younger looking skin can be achieved by everyone. Eat healthy, reduce the impact of the environment on your skin and use high quality anti aging products such as creams and lotions to further enhance your skin. Actively research each active ingredient and decide if the anti aging product is able to deliver the rejuvenating effect you wish for.